Zen Monkey

Perhaps it was dangerous of me to study both philosophy and debate while supplementing it with an examination of the world's religions.

There were times in history when a woman like me had two choices: shut up or escape. Lately, I've been half tempted to do both. Being me, however, prevents me from doing either and instead I have to find my footing again.

I hadn't realized until today that I wasn't totally grounded until someone I cared about made an easy (and calloused, thoughtless, and cowardly) choice of disconnecting from me on the big ol' playground called facebook. I spent a good half an hour wrestling with whether I would be hurt or dismissive. For most of my life, I would have chosen to be hurt.

Today, I choose to dismiss. It's incredibly significant that it only took me half an hour to reach this decision. I thank my previous marriage for teaching me expediency in matters of the heart.

Here's the rub: I'm worried about my soft heart and how hard parts of it have become. I should spend some time focusing on positive thoughts directed toward them. Instead, I find myself standing back and considering how every bridge burned puts them closer to a terrifying loneliness and I just don't care.

Dear god, I don't care. That's really weird in the course of my life. I have yet to see a road killed animal that doesn't hurt my feelings or a spontaneous act of kindness that doesn't make me cry a little with exhausted joy. Here, now, I'm contemplating this dismissal with surgical precision and in a framework of logic based on abnormal psychology. That is, I'm thinking about this disconnection in a scientific way and without judgement. The Nice Girl part of me thinks I should be sorry or gentle or try and *fix* whatever this is.

But I am done fixing situations that I did not cause. These little social blunders, the wicked sharp ones that only family seems capable of, no longer concern me. Sure, we're related. There are a million words and proverbs and rules that say I should keep caring, keep trying, keep suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous blood relatives. I say no.

No more. You will no longer bully me, whoever you are. It doesn't matter if I "should" forgive you because we "should" care for each other. It doesn't matter if you are a stranger, an acquaintance, a friend, or family. Because I was kind and gentle and acquiescent, I have been shoved down and I have been emotionally disregarded (if not abused).

The world has broken me of my entirely soft heart, but I have come to understand that putting up walls and crafting my own armor is not the terrible sad thing of many philosophies. It is, simply, the only way I know how to survive.

With that, my demons, you are dismissed. Go play elsewhere. I'm busy loving cherry blossoms and salamanders.